Of Lightning Strikes and Fishing Trips
by Regardless1604
Summary: When a harmless picnic goes wrong, Toby learns that sometimes taking a stand and not just being passive is necessary. Written for the Dares Forum. The Dare: Gift fic. One shot.


**Hey, hey, hey! Here's my entry for the new dare: the gift one shot! It's... not really what I wanted to be. I'm pretty dissapointed with it, actually. And it bums me out because I wrote it for swingdancer23, our forum admin, as a bit of a thank you for giving us such an awesome forum. It's a rushed piece, and I've seriously never written for Toby before. But... I hope you like it :D**

**Disclaimer: Harvest Moon belongs to Natsume.**

"A goldfish,"

"An alligator,"

"A blowfish,"

"A hippo,"

"An eel,"

"A bunny~!"

"A carp,"

"Is fish all you can think of?"

Toby leaned back on a tree and smiled. "Is something wrong with that? I like fish!"

"Of course not!" Molly laughed, then shook her head. "But when a storm cloud looks specifically like a codfish to you, I think something may be wrong."

They both laughed and Molly pulled a few covered dishes from her picnic basket. "Speaking of fish, we should eat lunch. Sorry that I'm not really good at cooking, but the only thing I had on hand was some boxed Pasta Roni… I hope you like shells and cheese."

The fisherman took his bowl with a smile, but hesitated before taking a bite, hearing the other's sigh. "What is it?"

"The storm looks like it's getting really close, really fast. I think we're going to get rained out before we can even do any fishing."

The disappointed look on her face made Toby wish that he could chase the clouds away. This was their second picnic, and the first time Molly was pulled away before they could even eat because of a run-away cow reported in Harmonica Town; turns out it wasn't even hers, but she was so flustered that she decided it would be best to cancel. Toby fished on his own, which wasn't a big deal, but he missed his partner nonetheless. The fact that they were just friends didn't matter in the issue, but considering that the lively farmer had started to grow on him it felt rather lonely when he was supposed to be fishing with her, but… wasn't. They didn't have much of a choice this time around, though, so maybe they could move their outing to later that week. Yeah, that could work.

"Is my cooking really that bad?" Molly startled him out his thoughts. She had a fork sticking out of her mouth and a cheek full of food that reminded Toby of a chipmunk.

"What?"

"You haven't taken a single bite! Is something wrong?"

He stared down at the bowl in his hands then looked back at her. "Oh no, everything is fine." No, everything was _not_ fine. The moment he put a forkful of pasta in his mouth, his first reaction was to gag. How on earth do you mess up a _box of pasta_? Despite that, he swallowed, feigning to find his lunch agreeable. "It's… it's very good."

She smiled back and continued her meal, and the sky was obviously growing darker over Flute Fields where the two were sitting at. A strong wind began to pick up and the air dropped a few degrees; Summer rain in Castanet was always nice, creating a wonderful, cool temperature without the humidity. Sadly, the wind didn't last too long before bringing large drops of rain from above, creating a rhythmic _plop, plop, plop_ in the river before them.

Molly managed to catch the wicker basket before it could fly into the river and shoved her lunch back into it, then held it out to Toby to do the same. Standing up, she put a hand to her forehead to shield her eyes from the rain. "My farm isn't too far away, let's get over there before it gets too heavy!"

He obliged and together they ran up the sandy road. The fisherman wasn't one for running, but he decided it would be best to keep up. Halfway to her property, Molly turned to Toby, her face blurred by the now pouring rain. "You know, I haven't done this since I was young! I remember always running around in the rain, and this brings back a lot of memories!"

Her delighted smile caused his heart to nearly skip a beat and, distracted, wasn't looking where he was going. "That's gr—woah!" his sentence was cut off with a surprised yelp as he face planted into the mud. His sandal had caught on a rather large rock, but other than the residing pain from shock, nothing seemed to be damaged. Molly was a good five feet away from him, staring wide-eyed. "Are you okay?"

He looked up at her and flashed a muddy smile and began to push himself up off the ground. That's when he felt it, and apparently she did too, judging from her suddenly worried face. He could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up slightly, despite the water running down his head. In some sort of desperate action to get out of the way he jumped to his feet, but was automatically thrown to the ground as a blinding flash of white-hot light hit the ground.

Huge black spots danced in his vision and his head felt light. All he could do was lay there, trying not to cry out from the shooting pain in his arm. It seemed that the fall was worse than the actual lightning strike, which was good. As his scrambled mind slowly began to comprehend his surroundings other than the pain, he tried to recall what was going on. There was a picnic… and he was supposed to go fishing with… with… _Molly_. Toby shook his head, trying to clear his vision to look out beyond the sheets of rain. A dark outline was sprawled out before him, and with his remaining strength he dragged his body over to her.

The sight made him want to close his eyes and never open them again. Burn marks lined her lower neck and right shoulder, as though someone had taken a whip to her sturdy frame. Her shirt was charred in those areas, revealing raw, discolored skin, boasting of deep nerve damage. Her unconscious face looked pained and almost surprised, as though she didn't comprehend what was going on. Toby took a shaky breath and shut his eyes tightly. He didn't know how to deal with life or death situations like this. He only did things he could take at his own pace and high-stress situations could almost send him into a state of shock, even if he wasn't suffering from blood loss. He had no idea what to do. Should he just lie there, and pretend that it wasn't happening?

No, he couldn't. He had to do something for the farmer before her condition could get any worse, despite his panicking.

"Molly," he got closer to her face and wiped the strands of hair from her face, "Molly, you have to get up. Come on, wake up!" He didn't dare shake her limp body, but instead gripped her hand with his working arm and squeezed it. His voice went from a worried tone to a shout. "I need you to get up! Molly, I can't get you to the clinic without your help! Please!"

He was too busy pleading with her to notice that one of her eyelids had cracked open. "W-what…"

"Huh? You're awake! Oh good… now what do I do?" He looked around frantically.

"I-I don'… Wha's going on…?" her dazed gaze couldn't seem to focus on anything. "I…"

Thoroughly freaked out and without the words to speak, he slowly lifted her to a sitting position. She showed no signs of pain, which gave him the courage he needed to get her to the clinic. "O-okay, can you stand up?"

She moved along with him, and finally they managed to get in a proper position for walking. It was a slow, painful journey—mentally and physically—but somehow they managed to make it. The stairs were the hardest thing to defeat, but step by step they made it, with his weak muscles managing to support her, who was still in a fuzzy state of mind. Toby strained his other arm, which he was sure was broken, to flung open the door to Choral Clinic, nearly collapsing into the shiny white lobby the second after. From behind the front desk, Irene's eyes widened slightly. "What happened here?"

"…Lightning…" That was it before he fell onto the tile, Molly and all.

* * *

Hours later, after a flurry of hospital business and exhausted sleep, Toby found himself in a hospital bed with his arm casted and Molly staring at him expectantly. "Are… are you okay?"

She nodded with a small, little bit confused smile on her face. "Yeah, I suppose."

Her whole upper right body was bandaged and her face was scraped, but otherwise she looked fine. With a few glances and some hesitation, he asked, "Does it hurt?"

"Not really. I…" She stared hard at the wall in front of them, as if she was trying to figure something out. "I don't remember what happened, I just know that I got hit by lightening. Jin said that it damaged the tissue so bad that I'll probably never be able to feel this area again."

"Oh… I see."

After a long pause, she turned to the fisherman again. "You know, Toby, that was a really brave thing you did; lugging me all the way over here with a broken arm!" She laughed a little bit.

He wasn't really sure what to say, but a thought came to him. "I think I won't be running around in the rain ever again."

"Me neither," She smiled widely. "But we should do this again—that is, have a fishing trip. Try to get it to work out and all. I think it'll be fun."

Molly really was an amazing person. In spite of all that had happened—nearly dying!—she still looked forward to enjoying time with Toby. A happy feeling welled up in his throat, and a sudden realization hit him: life isn't going to run at his pace, it's going to make him do difficult things, and there's just no getting around it. But maybe that was a good thing. As long as he had Molly by his side, he could have the strength to go through with it.

Years down the road they would remember that day and how it influenced so many other things. They did indeed have that perfect picnic, rain-free, and many more after. It proved that in the end, life may be hard and painful at times, but living it is a wonderful thing.

* * *

**A/N: You see, my original idea was a lot more... fluffy. I just couldn't transfer the idea I had into writing. I feel embarrassed to have such shoddily made gift fic -_- Um, yeah... So, Lyric! Thank you! You're awesome! And that's about it for me. Concrit is really, really welcome at this point :D**


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